YMCA of the USA wanted to build the capacity of its people to identify opportunities, experiment with new ideas, and drive innovation across a national network of employees and volunteers.
The Challenge
Innovation could not live with one team.
YMCA needed an approach that would give people across the organization the skills, tools, and confidence to identify needs, test ideas, learn from experiments, and share what worked across the broader movement.
What We Uncovered
We began by understanding how innovation was already happening across the organization.
Through research, workshops, and synthesis of previous innovation efforts, we identified the behaviors, barriers, and opportunities shaping how teams approached new ideas.
The opportunity was not simply to create an innovation process. It was to build the capability of people throughout the organization to use it.
How We Worked
We worked alongside YMCA leaders to turn those insights into a practical approach teams could use in their everyday work.
Together, we developed personas, facilitated working sessions, tested ideas, and created an innovation roadmap that helped teams move from identifying needs to experimenting, learning, and sharing results.
What We Built
A practical innovation roadmap and field guide designed to help teams put innovation into practice across the YMCA network.
The tools gave people a shared approach for identifying opportunities, testing ideas, tracking impact, and spreading learning across the organization, building greater capacity for innovation over time.
Capabilities
Design Research • Innovation Training • Facilitation • Capability Building
